[pwalker8]

One of the downsides to star ratings is that different stars mean different things to various people. I'm old enough that I tend to put things on a bell curve. The vast majority of narrators are a three because I think they are good, but they don't necessarily stand out as extraordinary from either a good or bad point of view. I would rate most of the ones I mentioned in my first post in this thread as 4's because they stood out, but weren't perfect. Jim Dale and Tim Curry are two that I would rate as 5 for the Harry Potter and Abhorsen series respectively. I can't tell you how many times I've listened to both of those series.

People now days seem to think that rating someone a 3 star is a complete failure (I call this a 1 star), 4 stars is something to brood about(I call this 2 star) and 5 stars as expected(I call this 3 star). I can't imagine actually listening to a complete book where I rated the narrator as a 1 or 2 star.

I would also say that sometimes the choice of one voice can really grate on my nerves. Cameron Beierle is the narrator for the Brian Daley series Doomfarers of Coramonde (one of my favorite series of all time). I flat out could not stand his choice of a high falsetto voice for one of the female characters. Couldn't finish the book. I was shocked when I noticed that he also did the Belgarion by David Eddings, also one of my favorite series and a series where I really enjoyed the audio books a lot. He would have been rated a 2 for Doomfarers and 4 for the Belgarion by me.